Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

On November 8, 2001, Dr. Ron Remick, psychiatrist, talked about the psychiatric disorder called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD.

Dr. Remick provided a brief history of PTSD. The term described “soldiers horrors” and other traumatic experiences such as “shell shock” experienced by war veterans, rape victims, holocaust survivors, and prisoners of war.

It became more politicized perhaps as Vietnam and Gulf War vets sought treatment, and when rape vicims and motor vehicle accident victims sought compensation and justice.

There are four features to the diagnosis of PTSD:

• An event causing a person to witness an actual or threatened death, serious injury, or threat to personal integrity;
• One re-experiencing symptoms such as recurrent thoughts about the event, recurrent intrusive recollections, recurrent distressing dreams, flashbacks, or intense psychological distress when something reminds the person of the event, such as a gunshot.
• Three of the following symptoms:
  • a) avoidance of thoughts, people, feelings and activities that remind the person of the event,
  • b) inability to recall events about the trauma,
  • c) decreased interest or participation in activities,
  • d) detachment or pushing people away,
  • e) decreased affect, such as inability to feel love, or
  • f) symptoms of depression;
• Two of the following increased arousal symptoms:
  • a) decreased sleep
  • b) irritability and/or anger outbursts
  • c) decreased caring
  • d) hypervigilance
  • e) exaggerated startle
• Out of the above criteria, symptoms must be present for more than one month as should significant distress and impaired ability to care for self.

PTSD has similar symptoms to other depression or anxiety disorders. A distinguishing feature is alternating reliving intrusive symptoms with denial/numbing symptoms.

Treatments vary and include crisis counseling, medications and cognitive behavioral therapy. To address the fear associated with PTSD, people may try a variety of therapies including desensitization, flooding, hypnosis, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.